


A Christmas Riddle

by Kissed_by_Circe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas, Cinderella Elements, Cop!Jon, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Hide and Seek, kind of, politician!Sansa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 15:14:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17185376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissed_by_Circe/pseuds/Kissed_by_Circe
Summary: “You’re like Cinderella, you know?”, he whispers into her ear when they’re standing at the bar, his mouth close, oh so close to her neck, his hot breath ghosting over her exposed skin like a dragonfly’s kiss, and she has to suppress a shiver. Earlier that night, when he asked her if Harry was her boyfriend, she expected him to ask for her number, or a date, but he didn’t, and now there’s a bit of disappointment laying heavily in her stomach and a quiet voice in the backside of her head, that nags and eats and whispers dark thoughts.Sansa and Jon meet at a club, and he wants to find out who she really is...Inspired by my all-time favourite Christmas movie, Three Nuts For Cinderella 🎄👸🏼🌟🦄 (it’s on Netflix! Finally!)





	A Christmas Riddle

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, it’s not Christmas without three days of celebrations, reading a Cornelia Funke novel, my cousin Bene destroying everyone at Worms 🎮 (the version from 1998) and watching a prince in ridiculously tight red leggings chase Cinderella through the woods 💑 
> 
> Pro tip: listen to the soundtrack on YouTube ❤️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C924eNQwRm4
> 
> Also a shit ton of people are using nom-de-plumes in this one, Sansa’s is ‘Elyn’, Arya’s is ‘Cat’, Wylla Manderly is ‘Wyl’ and Gendry is referred to as ‘Waters’

**Jon**

 

„Wait, you’re going out tonight? Without me?” Aegon stares at his younger brother in disbelief, his nose – red, puffy, and buried in a tissue more often than not for almost four days now – scrunched and squinting his eyes, as if he’s not really sure if he’s actually talking to Jon, who’s dark and broody and _hates_ going out even more than having to talk to people that aren’t a part of his squad.

 

“Are you getting sick, too? Rhae, come over here and feel lil Jonny’s forehead, I think he’s down with the flu. Or mad cow disease”, he yells over to the kitchen, where their sister’s hiding from Aegon and his gems, but she just sticks her head out for a moment, hisses something about not being their fucking nurse, and goes back to writing whatever she’s writing right now.

 

“I’m not sick, thank you very much, _asshat_. Maybe I just like going out on a Friday night?” “ _Of course_. Just like I like babysitting Dany’s hell spawn.” He rolls his eyes, and eyes his baby brother suspiciously, the dark Henley, black jeans, leather jacket already in his hands… “Is this about a girl? Are you going out with a _girl_?” Instead of an answer, Jon just blushes, and practically flees the apartment.

 

**Sansa**

 

The music is drumming in her ears and pulsing through her veins, drowning out all of her thoughts, strobe lights cutting through the darkness of the club, but it’s still too dark and too bright to actually make out the faces of the people around her and so it’s easy to lose herself in the mass of writhing flesh on the dance floor. Feeling a big, strong hand on her hip, she looks up to see Harry standing over her and smiling at her through his beard.

 

It tickles her neck when he leans down to scream in her ear, something about ‘tired’ and ‘going home’ and ‘come with me or stay here?’, and she smiles back and points over to where she can see Arya and Gendry, mouthing ‘I’m staying’. Harry nods, and brushes his lips over her temple in a quick kiss before he makes his way over to where Jory’s standing, clearly waiting for him to come and take her home.

 

Sansa waves at her and blows them kisses, before she turns back to her sister and starts dancing again, feeling herself move to the music without having to think about her steps. Two more dances, and she’ll get herself another drink, she promises herself. And maybe she’ll meet _him_ again.

 

Jon, at least that’s what his friend called him, and she remembers how he blushed whenever she’d spoken to him. He’d looked so uncomfortable, so out of place at the bar, and he’d caught her eye immediately, with his brown hair that reached down to the collar of his leather jacket and the dark eyes and the incredible tight pants, like a prince out of one of the old fairy tale movies she still watched on cold, dark nights next to the fireplace.

 

She’d watched him from afar, how he stood there with an untouched bottle of beer in his hand, playing the wingman for his blue haired model friend, and checking his phone every few minutes as if he didn’t want to be there once the other guy had disappeared on the dancefloor. She’d never seen him dance, or flirt, or talk to someone. And then, one night, he’d walked past her on the dancefloor, and she’d yelled ‘You wanna dance? I _love_ this song!’ and smiled at him encouragingly.

 

No one danced worse than him, she was sure of it, because he couldn’t find his rhythm, and his movements were horribly awkward that night, as if he’d never danced before, but he loosened up after a dozen songs, and by the time Arya signalled her to stop and come outside, he was smiling shyly at her. Bravery and laughter, that’s what she’d told herself that night and every night that followed. Approaching him was brave, and seeing that she had a positive impact on him made it even better.

 

In the beginning, they just danced and laughed silently, but after a few weeks, she leaned against the bar next to him, her side brushing against his fingers where they curled around a beer bottle, and ordered a cocktail, before she asked him why he came here if all he did was standing around awkwardly. His answer was so honest it sent a chill down her spine, and then it made her insides flutter.

 

“My brother thinks it’d be a good way to distract me from my- um, dark memories. Traumas, more like. But now I come here to dance. Because that makes me happy.” A kindred spirit, she’d thought, and smiled when he blushed. “Same”, she murmured shyly, looking down at her drink, pale yellow, with lemons, and non-alcoholic, of course, and the look in his eyes – as if he knew exactly what she was talking about, as if he’d survived the same.

 

They talked about normal things at first – hobbies, movies and books, pets – until she’d gone outside one night, because a drunk guy had gripped her arm tightly enough to leave bruises when she’d refused to give him her number, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. He’d followed her, to make sure she was okay.

 

Realising that she was in a dark back alley behind a club with a man she didn’t really know had nearly sent her into a panic attack, but he’d been so kind - he asked her if she was okay, if he could do something to make her feel better, but he didn’t touch her, clearly knowing what to do. He’d asked her if she’d like to go back inside, or if he should go and get her friends, but she didn’t want to go back just yet, and she didn’t want him to leave her, either.

 

Dom Bolton stood only a few metres away, a cigarette between his pale fingers and Wynafryd Manderly’s tongue in his mouth, so she felt safe enough out there, and when she shook her head ‘no’, Jon shrugged of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders, finally taking her hands in his to keep them warm. And then he talked about how it happened to him, too, how fighting in the war for the dawn had changed him, how he couldn’t breathe when he heard crows screaming in the trees above him, and she told him about her ex and his friends and her time at boarding school.

 

When Arya had found them, her knuckles bloody from breaking her sister’s assailant’s nose – and jaw, three fingers, and maybe a few ribs, too, before Jory and Gendry had managed to drag her off of him – they stood there watching the snow fall, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her waist.

 

And that’s how it all started.

 

**Jon**

 

When Jon returns from the ladies’ room – where he tried to scribble out the phone number Aegon wrote on one of the stall doors with a sharpie months ago, and failed miserably, while several drunk girls shot him dirty looks – his gaze is drawn to the dance floor, to where she’s dancing with her friends, the silver dusting on the short grey fur jacket she wears over an emerald green dress catching the strobe lights and her short brown hair gleaming copper where she pinned it up.

 

Moving into her direction without thinking, he stops short when he notices the man next to her, his hand on her hip, his mouth on her ear, his lips brushing her temple in a chaste kiss, and his hands curl into fists while a fog of crimson rises behind his eyes when he recognises him. Harry. Maybe another name on the list of people he prays for at night.

 

He makes his way over to her slowly, carefully moving past the other dancers, until he’s standing next to her, until she can she him from the corner of her eye, and the smile she gifts him makes him forget everything else. _Almost_ makes him forget. He wants to dance with her, make her laugh, hold her in his arms, but first – “The guy you danced with, that kissed your cheek…”

 

“Harrion?”, she supplies him, her eyes wide and a grin tucking on her mouth, but he doesn’t see it. He’s staring over her shoulder, because he can’t meet her eye. “Yes”, is all he can grunt out, before he takes a deep breath and asks the question that’s been tearing on him since he saw them together. “Is he your boyfriend?”, quick and steady, like ripping of a band-aid.

 

“What? Harry? My _boyfriend_?” Her laughter makes him even more nervous than he already is, and seeing her dissolve into giggles is almost too much, until she catches herself and becomes serious. “No, no, gods _no_. They are old family friends, and we even introduce Harry and Aly as our cousins, because we’re so close, and they look so much like my sister – he’s a _friend_ , nothing more.

 

Why are you asking?”, she shoots back, a wicked grin on her lips and a glimmer of hope in her eyes. If he wasn’t so blind, he’d ask her for her number now, but he can’t, he, as Rhaenys always says, ‘cannot see the forest because of all the trees’. “Um, well, you see”, he stumbles over his words, blushes furiously, and scratches his neck, and she feels like she might pull a muscle or two, because she’s grinning so much. He’s going to ask her out, _finally_.

 

But all that comes out of his mouth is “Because Harry had a very _loud_ and apparently very _dirty_ quickie in the ladies’ room. With loads of ‘You’ve been a naughty girl’ and ‘Give it to me, Harry’ and some ‘Choke me harder daddy’s” and Elyn just stares at him blankly for half an eternity, before she manages to ask him if he knows anything about the girl that was with Harry.

 

“Aehm, he called her ‘baby girl’ and ‘Jory’.”, he manages to squeeze out, before she hugs him and squeals, loud enough for her sister and bestie to look at them with concern written all over their faces, until she screams “Harry made a move on Jory!”, which makes her and Cat burst into laughing, while Waters looks rather _disappointed._ “And I bet on him dating Wylla”, he mumbles in Jon’s direction, and he gives him a sympathetic smile and a shrug before he turns back to Elyn.

 

**Sansa**

 

“You’re like Cinderella, you know?”, he whispers into her ear when they’re standing at the bar, his mouth close, oh so close to her neck, his hot breath ghosting over her exposed skin like a dragonfly’s kiss, and she has to suppress a shiver. Earlier that night, when he asked her if Harry was her boyfriend, she expected him to ask for her number, or a date, but he didn’t, and now there’s a bit of disappointment laying heavily in her stomach and a quiet voice in the backside of her head, that nags and eats and whispers dark thoughts.

 

What could a guy like Jon – tall, dark, handsome, _yes_ , but kind and sweet and shy and compassionate, too – want from a broken girl like her?

 

But he silences that voice with his next words. “You’re beautiful, of course, but you’re also kind and emphatic, and I’ve seen that video your friend took of you with that puppy, Nymeria”, he rambles on, and stops himself when crimson rises from his neck to his cheeks, reigning himself in and remembering what he wanted to tell her. “And you always disappear at midnight, without saying goodbye.”

 

“Hm, maybe Cinderella has a curfew”, she whispers back, hoping she doesn’t sound overly prim. Or she doesn’t want Harwin to stay up that late every weekend, or her parents to worry over her and Arya. Or maybe she doesn’t want to stay that long, and prefers to go home rather sooner than later. She doesn’t tell him that, of course, and laughs instead when he buries his face in his hands and groans “Fuck, you’re not even 18, and I’ll get in a shitton of trouble for- for keeping you up so late.”

 

“Relax, honey, I’m 22. You can check my ID if you want to”, she tells him with a smirk, trying to be flirty and cringing inwardly. She’s not used to flirting seriously – she only jokes with Gendry and Harry and Domeric, and they know that there’s no more to it – and she hopes that she won’t scare him off. It backfires when he leans back against the counter and grins at her, but his words are too serious for her liking. “Do it. Then I’ll know your real name at last.”

 

Her heart beats faster, and not in a good way, but she manages to curl her lips into a smile, too cheery to seem real, and giggles, as if she’s drunk – she hasn’t had a single drink, and he knows it, but still. “My real name? You’re so silly, Jon. I’m Elyn. Who else would I be?” Squinting at her through the neon-bright darkness, he slowly shakes his head. “No, you’re not. You’re hiding something, I’m sure of it”, and, after looking down at his beer as if it could give him the answers he seeks, he mumbles “and there’s no girl named Elyn Stone to be found on social media.”

 

Tilting her head and letting her mouth form a small, surprised “Oh”, followed by a quiet “Why?”, she looks at his bashful expression, the shyness that washed over him making something inside her ribcage flutter. She knows why people ‘stalk’ other’s Facebook and tumblr and Instagram, but she still wants to know why _he_ searched for _her_. “Um, because- I like you, and I wanted to find out who you really are, outside this club. The nights we spend here are like, um, out of a fairy-tale, and I wanted to know who you are in real-live.”

 

“Maybe I want this to be a fairy-tale, you know?”, she whispers in his ear, and he nods. He doesn’t ask her for her name again.

 

**Jon**

 

She doesn’t say goodbye to him, she never does. No, Elyn, his mystery girl, simply disappears around 12 o’clock, vanishing like a nymph or a dryad, leaving nothing behind but a whiff of an airy perfume – forget-me-nots and honey and something northern, something that reminds him of _home_ – taking the petite girl with the bruised knuckles and the guy with the septum piercing and at least one other guy with her. He finds out where she goes on accident.

 

Through some incident or the other, probably concerning the overthrow of the old government and the protests that follow it, he and Satin find themselves doing overtime and taking over colleagues shifts more often than not, and so they land in an almost abandoned looking greasy spoon at 00.30 on a Saturday night, hoping for some solitude, some quiet and some coffee, when he spots a shimmer of copper and jade in a corner. Elyn and the girl they call Wyl, he knows it even before he recognises the guy with the nose ring – _Waters_ , that’s what she always calls him – and Cat and the constipated looking guy in the blazer jacket.

 

Not wanting to bother them, he turns to the counter, but one of them must’ve noticed him and Satin, because a few moments later, _she_ is standing next to them, a soft smile and a quiet “Hello” on her lips. Her friends are snickering and giggling and trying very hard not to look like they’re staring at them. They’re failing very, _very_ hard. He waves at them, and Wyl pretends to faint dramatically. Elyn looks rather embarrassed.

 

“So, um, you’re a…”, she gestures to his uniform, bites her lip the way all girls do when they see ~~Dickon~~ a hot cop, and Satin grins, excuses himself, and walks, no, _strides_ over to her friends, and he just nods mutely like an idiot. “And I was worried about you”, she grins, and, seeing his confusion, explains, ”when you weren’t at the club. I thought you might be sick, or that something happened, because you have been there every Friday for months now.” “Yeah, but, um, they changed some of our shifts – we have to work even more now because of all the protests and possible terror attacks.”

 

She nods in understanding, and somehow, she ends up ranting passionately about the Northern Democratic Party, people demanding northern independence and Stannis Baratheon becoming the next president of the Seven Kingdoms, and he just stares at her, at her flushed cheeks and glinting eyes and the passion he can see in them. “Wow, you really _are_ a princess”, he mumbles, making her blush and swat his arm playfully. “I’m not a princess.” ‘Yes, you are’, he thinks to himself, and when he leaves, his fingers wrapped around a paper cup of black black coffee while she returns to her squad, he can’t help but think that she would look good with a crown on her head.

 

**Sansa**

 

Her heart stutters and flutters and stops for a moment when she sees him in the large marble foyer of the Karstark’s grand mansion. _He’s not supposed to be here_. He’s a police officer, a hard rock and football fan, a humble, normal guy she met some months ago on the dancefloor of a club that’s not the kind girls like her should go to – which was the very reason why she choose it, gods dammit, because no one from her normal circle would step a foot in there, apart from her squad, who only goes there because of her – and he’s not supposed to be the kind of guy that’s invited to parties like this one.

 

It’s thrown by none other than Rickard Karstark, one of the most ambitious men in the whole North, apart from Roose Bolton, of course, and the whole Northern delegation that follows Robb, who they call _The Young Wolf_ , is there to talk to and discuss things with and sway all the other politicians invited – and to watch Harry and Jory sneak off to the bathroom for a quick ~~ie~~ discussion, Domeric chatting with the guy Alys secretly married last month to make sure he’s included and Lyra falling into the punch to distract people from Torr, who’s hitting on Wylla again.

 

Sansa wants to look away from them, because it’s almost too painful to watch and listen to the middle Karstark brother stutter through his words, but she’s a good person and a good friend, and so she gestures for Wylla to just relieve him of his suffering. Poor guy’s been mooning over her long enough, and she likes him, too, so she should make a move before he chokes on his tongue. But her friends’ love live isn’t her top priority right now, no, that’s _him_.

 

She has to admit that he looks quite handsome in a suit and bow – not as good as his usual rugged Henley and leather jacket combo or, _gods help her_ , that uniform that left her all hot and bothered that night at the diner, where they always stop for some veggie burgers and curly fries and milkshakes after dancing half the night away – but he can’t see her here, or else he’ll find out who she _truly_ is.

 

She’s been too careful for him to find out until now, but here, at the party of a man she calls uncle, thrown for her brother and the DPNR, there’s a real possibility of him recognising her as Sansa Stark, junior PR manager for the Northern Democrats, daughter of the former vice president, sister of the North’s next Warden and, possibly, _hopefully_ , president of an independent North.

 

Forcing herself to breathe, she reassures herself. He’s only seen her at the club and in the dark alley behind it, either in bad lighting or darkness, apart from that one time at the diner, and she’s been _careful_ – clothes she’s never been photographed or filmed in, dry shampoo in her hair to make it look brown, and some make-up to make her face appear thinner, edgier, _sharper_. Not even Gendry recognised her in the darkness behind their townhouse when he picked them up the first time, so her masquerade probably works on Jon, too.

 

He’ll only see a girl with auburn finger waves and a glittery pink dress and pearls in her hair, and nothing more. _They never see more_. And so she puts on a strained smile and loosens her grip on Robb’s arm after she notices how her fingers dig into it, and hopes that they won’t come near Jon.

 

But in the end, she bumps into him on the dance floor.

 

**Jon**

 

“Hello princess”, he whispers after a moment – or twenty, he’s not sure, time stopped when he looked into her eyes, so different and yet familiar – and he’s not sure if it’s really her until she looks around to see if anyone heard him, while he’s proud of himself for reacting so quick and so smooth, at least for his low, _low_ standards. “How…?” “I’d recognise you everywhere”, he grins, and grows serious when he notices the concern shining in her eyes. “Don’t worry, darling, this changes nothing. You’re still Elyn to me, the mysterious princess from the club.”

 

She visibly relaxes after his reassurance, and places a hand on his shoulder. Waltzing isn’t his best skill, but she manages to guide him through some rounds, and they talk quietly. “You’re really a princess. You’re here, at a ball, and no, don’t fight me on that, this is as close to a ball as we’re going to get nowadays, in a pretty dress with a tiara on your head that looks too good to be fake, and you’re involved in politics and the Northern fight for independence, so yeah, you’re basically a princess by most standards.”

 

Grinning up at him, she hums. “You’re not really interested in politics, or you’d know who I am, so _why_ are you here tonight?” “Oh, I’m just Rhaenys’ moral support”, he shrugs, as if it explained everything, but it only confuses Sansa more. “Rhaenys? Like – Rhaenys Targaryen? The vice of the Dornish Party? The one that’s fighting for Dornish independence, like we’re fighting for our independence, and for women’s rights?” “The same. She’s my sister. And now I know that you’re an important political figure that I’ve never heard of, because I’m not really interested in politics. But I’m not going to use it to find out who you are, I promise.”

 

**Sansa**

 

She knew that he’d be there – she may or may not have asked Tyene Sand if Miss Targaryen’s brothers would be present for the inauguration of Joffrey Baratheon, who won the Iron Throne and lost both Dorne and the newly formed _Democratic Republic of the North and the Riverlands_ in a matter of seconds – and she already thought about hiding behind her friends, about using the Karstark’s and the Bolton’s, the Manderly’s and the Mormont’s as a human wall in front of her, but she doesn’t want to.

 

Their hide-and-seek will come to an end now, she decided, and so she is wearing a suit of silvery brocade and a half hat over her low chignon, the auburn waves shimmering copper and gold where the sun hits them, and allows her sweet Lady to press herself against her legs – direwolves are, after all, not only the sigil of House Stark, but also of the Northern Party, and her grey and white coat fits in quite perfectly with them, because Sansa is a perfectionist and got the Northerners and the delegates of the Riverlands to colour coordinate their clothes.

 

He looks good, she thinks not for the first time, in his leather jacket and combat boots and the tightest jeans ever worn by men, and she likes the message it conveys – the Baratheon boy may be the president of the ~~seven~~ five kingdoms now, but Jon won’t pay him the respect a president deserves by wearing formal clothing or even looking what most would deem ‘presentable around state-leaders’.

 

“So this is who you are”, he whispers when she stands in front of him, lacing her fingers through his. “The giggling vixen at the club that showed more bravery than anyone I’ve ever met, and the girl at the diner that ordered a veggie burger and talked as passionately about politics as a medieval warrior queen before she rides into battle, and the fairylike princess at the ball that slipped away without leaving her silver slipper behind, and now the prim and proper politician standing next to the young wolf and telling men thirty, forty years her senior where to stand and when to wave… that’s all you.

 

And”, he pulls her closer, gently, making sure she can pull back if she chooses, and rests his forehead against hers, “it’s probably only a fraction of who you are.” She grabs his collar and swallows his words in a kiss, and when she leans back, his eyes are still closed, and his face is soft. “Can I get to know you? Elyn? Or whatever your name is?”, he looks at her with a silent plea in his dark eyes, and she kisses him again.

 

“My name is Sansa, but you can keep calling me princess, if you want to.” 


End file.
